So, Spec Ops ment nothing to me... *spoilers*

[luke10123]

So I had been playing Spec Ops a while ago off the back of all the praise it had been recieving but never finished. I had just dropped White Phosphorus on a bunch of civilians and 5 minutes later I was thinking 'was that it? the big moment everyone's been talking about? THAT was it?'
Perhaps I'm just a bit of a dick, or playing games like Doom since I was 5 has left me a little de-senstised to violence but this so-called big emotional set-piece nearly passed me by completely, I didn't feel bad in the slightest! If anything I was left really disappointed like I had been expecting something more. After that it's been sitting gathering dust on my hard drive.
Is there more to come? Is it worth finishing (considering I thought the gameplay is as generic as it gets)? Did anyone else feel like this?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Kind of the same feeling I had.

Everyone was talking about good the game was, so I went in expecting an emotional and critical story on war, I wanted to hear the message the game had to say, and then the game tells me I'm a monster for wanting to hear them out.

'Do you feel like a hero yet?'

Well, actually, no, I never play games to 'feel like the hero', but thanks Spec Ops: The Line, thanks for calling me out on something I never felt in the first place.


Douchebag.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

It didn't work on me either! I tried so hard to be "immersed" too but I didn't feel anything.
Maybe it works better if you didn't expect it coming.

 

[JudgeGame]

The white phosphorous scene is hardly the climax of the game. As someone who was born and raised in a country that was blasted with white phosphorous (thanks US) and as someone who has practically never picked up a modern shooter, I wasn't particularly impressed by the scene. The good part only starts there.

Maybe the fact that Spec Ops' story shines as outstandingly good in the bucket of fecal matter that is videogame writing is the reason it goets so much praise. The writing in Spec Ops surpasses even Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now which it claims to be inspired by, making it one of the better stories of this era.

If nothing else, I have to respect Spec Ops' massive balls when it decides to comment on the state of modern shooters, war, US politics, interventionism, insanity and more when most games are still too chickenshit to comment on anything at all.

While I understand many people would have their minds blown by actually having a video game show you the consequences of your actions, the rabbit hole goes much deeper.

Personally the really affecting moment I had in Spec Ops happenned even earlier, when I accidentally shot a civilian in the mall I was supposed to be rescuing, when she ran at me, I shot reflexively. It wasn't even a scripted scene.

 

[DoPo]

So I had been playing Spec Ops a while ago off the back of all the praise it had been recieving but never finished. I had just dropped White Phosphorus on a bunch of civilians and 5 minutes later I was thinking 'was that it? the big moment everyone's been talking about? THAT was it?'

No, and I am baffled why so many people seem to think so. I've seen other proclaim "So what, I know there is a white phosphorous in the game - it can't be that interesting".

 

[Madkipz]

So I had been playing Spec Ops a while ago off the back of all the praise it had been recieving but never finished. I had just dropped White Phosphorus on a bunch of civilians and 5 minutes later I was thinking 'was that it? the big moment everyone's been talking about? THAT was it?'
Perhaps I'm just a bit of a dick, or playing games like Doom since I was 5 has left me a little de-senstised to violence but this so-called big emotional set-piece nearly passed me by completely, I didn't feel bad in the slightest! If anything I was left really disappointed like I had been expecting something more. After that it's been sitting gathering dust on my hard drive.
Is there more to come? Is it worth finishing (considering I thought the gameplay is as generic as it gets)? Did anyone else feel like this?

You thought it was some kind of major event or something before playing the game? It's just the start of the event. What's cool about spec ops comes later.

 

[Malisteen]

Also, a lot of the impact doesn't work if you already know it's coming for you. It's a game where the plot matters, so it can be spoiled. Most games, the plot is secondary to the gameplay, so even if you know what's going to happen or what the story's trying to set up, you can still enjoy yourself getting there. Not so much spec ops.

also, as with anything that receives massive internet hype, it isn't going to live up to expectations if you buy into it. Yeah, it's really good. And tons of people say so. But having millions of people screaming overtop of each other about how good it is creates unreasonable expectations.

anytime the faceless mass of the internet gets super riled up about how amazing something is, be it video game or movie or television show or web comic, you should interpret that as 'hrm, a lot of people like it, it's probably decent enough to be worth taking a look at', not as 'omg experiencing this is going to change my life'.

 

[AT God]

YES THERE IS MORE TO THE GAME, STOP USING THE INTERNET WHERE IT COULD GET SPOILED AND FINISH THE GAME

The game is a narrative, quitting a story at a key plot point doesn't give you the whole picture. If you quit playing Half-Life when the resonance cascade happens you would have missed the bigger message of the story.

First time I played Spec Ops, I knew something bad was going to happen so the white phosphorous part wasn't that big of a deal to me. However the continuation, the part people hopefully haven't spoiled for you, is what will get to you even if you knew a bad thing was going to happen.

Don't let the ending get spoiled for you, finish the game first. Same reason Braid and Citizen Kane aren't as enjoyable when you know the ending.

 

[bigwon]

Yeah it`s a pretty dull game, but i find it captures the mood quite well as you get in. It`s not so much the set pieces, and climaxes but the pacing that sort of gets a little hectic starting at the phosphorous bit.

It`s got a similar feeling to reading books on corporate intervention on 3rd world countries (which is always grim)

Not so much as earth shattering as it is a neat tribute to what results of 1st world standards of living.

 

[TheProfessor234]

I always thought the biggest thing about Spec Ops: The Line was more pointed towards the generic FPS's and trying to make their stories and game play irrelevant by flipping things over on their head.

You go through those games killing numberless amounts of people, being fed how much the hero and savoir you are, when in fact, you're just murdering a bunch of people. So the idea was to twist and dement the normal vision of the hero and show you the true colors of what is actually happening in the game. It reminds of Cabin in the Woods, which also deconstructs horror movies, in a sense, and tries to explain, 'What is actually going on.'

Or, at least that's what I gathered from it and most articles that talk about the game.

In any case, you don't have to enjoy it, and it's ok that you don't. And don't think you're special if you don't either. Again, I feel it was more poised at the industry more than anything else.

 

[Xaio30]

The game does not work for people already knowing what it's about. The message is pretty much rendered useless if you expect it all the way through.

 

[GAunderrated]

... Think of it as that time in English class where you're reading a book and told to analyse it. What you're doing is just reading it and taking it at face value. It ain't for everyone.

I just had to re-quote this because you read my mind when reading the OP's post. Kudos to you.

 

[The Madman]

I hate to be mean but bloody hell, are attention spans really so short nowadays that after something doesn't immediately have an emotional response people just turn off their chosen means of entertainment to complain about it on forums? Really?

No wonder games like Call of Duty strive to fill every last second of game time with as many explosions as possible. Can't dare try to actually build up to something through pacing anymore, god forbid a game takes its time, no it's got to be BAM BAM BAM INSTANT SATISFACTION.

I mean I liked Spec Ops, it was pretty good and I enjoyed myself. But I just don't understand this mindset. Spec Ops isn't even a long game and that event takes place maybe 1/3 of the way through it, you're barely scratching the surface. Presumably the games been bought, isn't there any urge to get you monies worth and see where things lead?

Why not just play the game and see where it goes? Even if you don't end up liking it, which let's be honest you probably wont after this topic, you'll at least be able to join in conversation about it and know what people are talking about.

 

[Kingjackl]

I reckon 'Spec Ops' probably would have meant a lot more to me if I hadn't unfortunately spoiled myself of all the big bits. I still appreciated them, but they didn't have the same shock factor.

 

[maotad]

I actually played through the game before I saw any of the "praise". And I still felt disappointed. Sure some of the events weren't pretty, but I never felt bad for doing them, since the game doesn't give me a choice. And every step I took, the game seemed to be pigeonholing me into something I'm not, which wasn't some "OMG what have I become" moment, but just annoying.
Some of the bits even made me chuckle (talk about desensitised), like the load screen messages like "How many Americans have you killed today?". Apparently I should feel bad for killing Americans, but not so much for others.

Should OP finish the game? Go ahead, you may get something out of it, although unlikely. But since you seem to have stopped playing, you might have already "WON". That seems to be the big message of the game.

 

[blackrave]

Kind of the same feeling I had.

Everyone was talking about good the game was, so I went in expecting an emotional and critical story on war, I wanted to hear the message the game had to say, and then the game tells me I'm a monster for wanting to hear them out.

'Do you feel like a hero yet?'

Well, actually, no, I never play games to 'feel like the hero', but thanks Spec Ops: The Line, thanks for calling me out on something I never felt in the first place.


Douchebag.

I think you must be unitedstatian to feel something about this game.
While I understood what this game tried to do, it didn't work on me.
On the other hand I would like to see more SGWWs that have also civilians, kids included, on the battlefield
Because most of firefights in CoD and BF feels sterile, thus non-realistic

 

[Amakusa]

Hmmmm i found the story compelling. However when i did play it, i did know the ending beforehand, only because if i going to spend money to buy a game that is meant to have a great story, i want to know if it's constructed well before i put moolah down for it.

That being said it didn't detract the value of the messages in the story. But i also studied international criminal law last year so i was looking from it at that background.

Spoiler: Possible war crimes and Game spoilers

White phosphorus scene and the water sabotaging scene

Basically the guy you end up playing is a war criminal. "The road the to hell is paved with the best intentions," (heard that quote from star trek DS9 but they got that from some source which i don't know) and he went mad doing it.

However the Rome statute jurisdiction is voluntary, so there would be no chance in hell that a US solder would ever face the Internal Criminal Court for war crimes.

On a side note, i did have an audience watching me play the game, and for that person they hated the story. With other shooters that person has watched, there was no response like the one that was elicited from spec ops. Just for that alone, it told me that was a good story.

 

[Naeras]

The white phosphorous scene isn't the big point of the game. It's the most iconic scene for sure, but it's not the big part. It's what starts the mental downwards spiral of the squad, which is the main story arc of the game.

 

[Vausch]

I agree. The gameplay was completely bkland. Clumsy mechanics and controls. The same generic weapons over and over again.

That's part of the point the game is making. The mechanics are meant to show that the things you'd see in other modern war shooters are just glorifying some rather sick events if you think about them.

And OP, finish the game. The white phosphorous is just one of the big moments in it.